Hell of a Ride
by Specks
Summary: Drabble. Buffy ruminates on the ubiquitous turns that have defined her as Slayer, Warrior, Girl even as she tries to pass her wisdom on to the next generation of Slayers.


Rating: G all welcome  
Author: Specks  
Disclamer: Mutant Enemy, Fox, and all those network honchos and writers own all, I own nothing, don't sue.  
Synopsis: Buffy searches for inspiration to continue the fight as she ruminates on her own life.  
Spoilers: Hints of all the seasons. So to be safe, lets just say up to season 7.

**Hell of a Ride**

The words don't come so easy anymore.

Faced with the newest batch of fresh young Slayers, she searches for inspiration and comes up blank. They are looking to her for guidance, for inspiration, for an affirmation of their uniqueness, but unlike that first time—amidst the raw and splintered realities of war—conviction fails. She stands up there, and she wants to promise them that it's all worth it. Wants to tell them their destiny leads to more than just sorrow, that fate favors the good and she never once doubted. It would be a lie of course, but such a pretty lie. One she's told herself and repeated to countless others over the course of her long long life.

But if she's learned anything at all over the years, it's that lies only tarnish the shining moments, and shining moments, though few in a Slayer's life, are all the more precious for their rarity. She knows, _knows_ with the bone deep certainty born of experience that the path of their destiny will be hard. Feels the guilt of promulgating the myth of Slayerdom on her podium three feet up. They call this the Slayer's Academy, but these halls, like the name of their school is golden, grand, and deceptive in this inviting permutation. The truth is, they are the Academy of War, and in this moment, tonight, Buffy is too tired to disguise it as anything else.

So instead of grandly sweeping promises, she gathers them close and gives them the story of _one_ Slayer. One life, she assures them, among a great many. They've all heard the legend before, of Buffy, the slayer prime, she who changed destiny, defied fate and failed to die, twice. It's an old tale now, touted so many times by Andrew that it's become a strange sort of history in and of itself. But the story she tells them now is beyond the legend and beyond the pedestal posterity seems so keen to allot her.

Sitting down with her legs crossed and thirty two slayers at rapt attention, she tells them about just plain ole Buffy, about her moments of grace and respite—About Giles and his wisdom, Xander and his surety, Willow and her exuberance—and how she never would have survived without all of them present. She tells them about the dark moments too—about how bleak the world had been after she'd sent Angel to hell, the empty buzz that'd occupied her head days and days after Joyce's funeral, the choice between her sister and a world that'd screwed her over more times than even she can count.

Its a tale, not about the triumphs of a hero, but of the decisions (sometimes poorly made) of a normal girl faced with extraordinary circumstances doing the best that she can. In the telling, she finds a belated acknowledgment of the ubiquitous turns in her life that have defined her as Slayer, Warrior, Girl.

She finishes and in the silence that follows, under the sparkle of their unwavering gaze, the words come.

"I can't tell you that it was all worth it," she says. "I'm still not sure. Being a Slayer…it's not glamorous and it's not easy, most of you won't survive to live out old age. But going out there every night, knowing you've saved lives, that's worth something. Finding out who you are and owning your destiny, that's worth something. Forging a bond with your sister Slayers., that's worth something—though I don't recommend Faith and I as examples." A couple chuckles for that one.

"In the end, what your calling means is up to you. You can walk out of here tonight and I won't think less of you. But if you stay…"

She looks them each in the eyes, allowing her solemnity to settle before breaking into a grin, "If you stay I can guarantee it'll be one hell of a ride."


End file.
